, rode up to our division. After a few hurried
questions to the officer in command, he wheeled his horse round, and
rode back towards the next column, which, from some accidental delay,
was yet two miles in the rear. The sound of the horse's hoofs was still
ringing along the causeway, when a loud shout, followed by the sharp
reports of pistol-firing, mingled with the voice. In an instant all was
as still as before, and save the crashing of the pine-branches and the
beating rain, no other sound was heard.

Our conjectures as to the cause of the firing were just making, when
an orderly dragoon, bareheaded and wounded, came up at the top of his
horse's speed. The few hurried words he spoke in a half-whisper to our
commanding officer were soon reported through the lines. Sir Edward
Paget, our second in command, had been taken prisoner, carried away by
a party of French cavalry, who were daring enough to dash in between the
columns, which in no other retreat had they ventured to approach. The
temerity of our enemy, added to our own dispirited and defenceless
condition, was the only thing wanting to complete our gloom and
depression, and the march was now resumed in the dogged sullenness of
despair.

Day followed day, and all the miseries of our state but increased with
time, till on the morning of the 17th the town of Ciudad Rodrigo came in
view, and the rumour spread that stores of all kinds would be served out
to the famished troops.

By insubordination and intemperance we had lost seven thousand men since
the day the retreat from Burgos began, and although neither harassed by
night marches nor excessive journeys, losing neither guns, ammunition,
nor standards, yet was the memorable document addressed by Wellington to
the officers commanding divisions but too justly merited, concluding in
these words:--

'The discipline of every army, after a long and active campaign, becomes
in some degree relaxed; but I am concerned to observe that the army
under my command has fallen off in this respect to a greater degree than
any army with which I have ever been, or of which I have ever read.'

CHAPTER LI. A MISHAP

If I began my career as a soldier at one of the gloomiest periods of our
Peninsular struggle, I certainly was soon destined to witness one of the
most brilliant achievements of our arms in the opening of the campaign
of 1813.

On the 22nd of May the march began--that forward movement, for the hour
of whose c